Aryan
Invasion Theory -The missing link
By Sushil Agarwal
http://www.the-pioneer.com/test/home1.htm
"They commit to memory immense amounts of poetry, ...some of
them continue their studies for 20 years... they have knowledge of the stars and their
motion, of the size of the world and of the earth, of natural philosophy, and of the
powers and spheres of action of the immortal gods, which they discuss and hand down to
their young students."
The above may appear to be an apt description of a Gurukul
in ancient India. But no, this is a statement attributed to Julius Caesar made about
Celtic Druides of Gaulish society in ancient times. Prof Myles Dillon, an eminent linguist
from Ireland, in his book Celts and Aryans has quoted the statement to indicate "the
similarity in status and function between Celtic Druid and Hindu Brahmin" pointing
clearly to a common Indo-European inheritance. A detailed analysis of the ancient
literature of both India and the Celtic people can prove the commonality in the language,
law and institutions in the two societies.
In present-day Europe, the people of Ireland, Scotland and Wales
in the British Isles and the Brittany area in France is called the Celtic speaking people.
But in ancient times, Celtic dialects were spoken in a vast area extending from parts of
Turkey to large parts of Europe. During the pre-Christ period, Celts wielded great power
in Europe for a couple of centuries. They are now confined only to the western-most areas
of Europe and British Isles.
The ancient Celtic society in Gaul (France) was divided into
three groups: Druides (priests), Equites (warriors) and the Plebs (common people). This
corresponded closely to the social set-up in India. The parallel names in Ireland were
Fili, Flaith and Aithech. Apart from the social structure, the influence of Indian
traditions is visible in Celtic folklore also.
Indian tradition describes eight forms of
marriage while the ancient Irish tradition also talks of eight to ten forms of marriage.
The nature of these marriages in the two traditions may not exactly be the same, but a
degree of closeness is visible. For example, besides the regular marriages, relationship
accepted on mans invitation or marriage by force seem to be similar to the Gandharva
and Asura forms in India.
Curious similarities are found in economic matters also. In
ancient India, a person having given a loan to another would adopt various methods for
collecting his money, one of which amounted to either a sit-in or hunger strike at the
door of the debtor until the payment was made. The ancient Irish laws also speak of a
creditors fast till death to recover the money from a debtor.
Another economic similarity was the recognition of wealth in
cattle. In the Vedas, cows are the proper measure of value, and gold became a standard
only later. In Ireland too, cows remained the measure of ones value as long as the
old order lasted. In the societies, cows represented fortune, prosperity, and the
satisfaction of needs and desires of men in both ancient societies.
In India, rivers are revered as cows, flow of their water as flow
of milk and the Sanskrit word for cow (go) occurs in the river names, such as Gomati
(possessing cows) or Godavari (giving cows). In Ireland too, the word for cow is bo which
occurs in the names of their rivers, such as Bo Nemid, Bo Guare, Boand. Boand means
cow-finder whose Sanskrit parallel with same meaning is Govind.
The point to be considered is why is there so much similarity in
the two societies, when geographically the two places are so far away from each other. Do
the Vedic and the Celts belong to a common stock of people who were separated at some
point of time in distant past? The scholars are inclined to answer this in the
affirmative. But there are differences in identifying the original homeland of these
ancient people called the Indo-Europeans.
On this question, one may follow the trail of
the Aryan invasion theory invented by the nationalist Germans and the colonial
British scholars during the last century to explain the strange phenomenon of linguistic
similarities between Sanskrit and many European and Central Asian languages. The basic
premise of the theory is that in ancient times people living in a certain area in Europe
or Central Asia, most probably in South Russia (but certainly not in India), moved out of
their habitat and entered different areas in Europe and Asia. The Aryans entered India as
invaders and gradually dominated the entire land besides developing their literature
called Vedas.
The idea of Aryan invasion is totally unknown to the Indian
tradition and literature. Many leading Indian scholars have negated this theory. They hold
that the original homeland of the Indo-European people was India. That it was from India
that the large scale migration took place to various directions including Iran and Central
Asia, Asia minor and European countries.
An old Irish story of Manannan and Oengus call India a sacred
land, from where two cows were brought whose milk tasted like honey. The obvious inference
that can be drawn from this mythological story is that the migration to Europe and Celtic
areas took place from India which is why the Celtic tradition remembers India as a
prosperous land, and also which is why it reveals such significant traces of Indian
influence. Nomadic hordes are not capable of developing any profound philosophy or
literature. Clearly, the migrations to European areas took place out of a developed Vedic
culture whose cradle indeed was India.
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